An updated presentation on the incompatibility between current 'development' model and ecological sustainability and social justice; and alternative practices and approaches for well-being (with examples from Bihar added).

1. Can Environment and
Development Go Together?
Ashish Kothari
Kalpavriksh

2. India’s Impressive Growth
• One of world’s biggest economies, high growth
rates, amongst world’s richest persons, 800 million
mobile phones …

3. ‘Development’
• Development = opening up of
opportunities: intellectual,
cultural, material, social
vs
• ‘Development’ = material
growth (through industrial and
financial expansion)
– measured in % economic
growth, per capita income,
etc
• ‘Development’ model currently
dominant only 50-60 years old

4. Today’s vision of ‘development’
Violence against nature, communities, and
cultures

5. Destruction of India’s environment
– >5.5 million ha. forest diverted in last 60 years
– 70% waterbodies polluted or drained out
– 40% mangroves destroyed
– Some of the world’s most polluted cities and
coasts
– Nearly 10% wildlife threatened with extinction
– Extensive chemical poisoning
Smitu Kothari

6. ‘Green / White revolution’ models
•addiction to outside seeds, water, fertilisers, pesticides, credit
•soil loss and degradation
•dependence on market, govt, moneylenders
•monocultures, bias against diversity
•neglect of dryland, seasonal, shifting agriculture
Pauperisation of marginal/small farmers: >250,000
suicides (many in heartland of green revolution!)
Destruction of India’s agriculture

7. Cost of environmental damage =
5.7% points GDP
World Bank (2013)
(impacts taken into account)
•urban & indoor air pollution
•inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene
•agricultural damage by soil salinity, water-logging & soil erosion
•pasture degradation
•deforestation
Growthless
growth

8. Jobless growth, continuing
deprivation, new dispossession
• Myth of growing employment: ‘jobless
growth’ in organised sector:
– 26.7 million in 1991
– 30 million in 2012
• % below poverty line: 38 to 70%
• World’s largest number of malnourished
and undernourished women/children
• 60 million people displaced by
‘development’ projects

9. Over-consumption by the
rich
• Does this really bring
happiness?

11. Where is all the money going?
1% richest own almost 50% wealth!!!!

13. India the new Coloniser
(with China)
>500,000 hectares of pasture/agricultural land
taken over by Indian companies in Ethiopia
More in L. America and rest of Africa
Direct/indirect support by government

14. Towards alternatives

15. Food security:
sustainable agriculture

16. •Reviving traditional diversity, promoting cultivated and wild foods
•Creating community grain banks
•Empowering women/dalit farmers, securing land rights
•Creating consumer-producer links (Zaheerabad org. food restaurant)
•Linking to Public Distribution System
Deccan Development Society (AP):
integrating conservation, equity, &
livelihoods through sustainable agriculture

17. Towards organic, Kedia
village (Jamui), Bihar

18. Water security: do we need
big dams and canals?

19. Kachchh
Water self-sufficiency in one of
India’s lowest rainfall regions

20. Arvari Sansad (Parliament),
Rajasthan: water and food
security through
landscape governance

21. Natural resources:
conservation & livelihoods

22. Conservation through decentralised governance:
Mendha-Lekha (Maharashtra)
Informed decisions
through monitoring, and
regular study circles
(abhyas gat)
All decisions in gram
sabha (village assembly);
no activity even by
government officials
without sabha consent

23. Conservation of 1800 ha forests, now with full rights
under Forest Rights Act
Vivek Gour-Broome
Earnings from sustainable NTPF use (over Rs. 1
crore in 2011-12), and use of govt schemes
towards:
•Full employment
•Biogas for 80% households
•Computer training centre
•Training as barefoot engineers
2013: all agricultural land donated to
village, collective ownership

24. www.kalpavriksh.org

25. Community based
Adjutant stork (garud)
protection in Bhagalpur
area, Bihar

26. Livelihood security

27. Jharcraft
(Jharkhand)
Employment for >3 lakh families…
reviving crafts, reducing outmigration

28. Dharani, AP: farmer’s company
(facilitated by Timbaktu Collective)

29. Maati Sangathan, Uttarakhand
Women’s empowerment through local resource-based
livelihoods

30. The Village and the City …

31. Gram swaraj & rural revitalisation:
outmigration is not inevitable
Ralegan Siddhi & Hivare Bazaar
(Maharashtra), Kuthambakkam (TN)
Kudumbashree (Kerala)

32. Towards sustainable cities
Bhuj (Kachchh):
•reviving watersheds, decentralized water storage and management
•solid waste management and sanitation
•livelihoods for poor women
•dignified housing for poor
•Information-based empowerment under 74th Amendment
(Hunnarshala, Sahjeevan, Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan, ACT, Setu)

33. Middle class actions …
Lake revival / conservation,
water harvesting, garbage
management (Bengaluru, Salem)
Participatory budgeting (Bengaluru/Pune)

34. Learning & education
Traditional and modern, oral and written, local and global
Continued links with cultural and ecological roots
•Schools: Pachashala (Andhra), Jeevanshala (Narmada), CFL
(B’lore), Adharshila (Madhya Pradesh)
•Colleges: Adivasi Academy (Gujarat)
•Other learning centres: Beeja Vidyapeeth (Uttarakhand), Bhoomi
College (Karnataka), SECMOL (Ladakh)

35. Energy, technology…
Energy: decentralised, renewable, efficient
(Ladakh solar; SELCO Karnataka)
Solar micro-grid
powering village
Dharnai, Bihar

36. Energy, technology…
Technological innovations to reduce ecological impact,
reach the poor (malkha cotton weaving, AP;
Hunnarshala housing, Kachchh)

37. The government responds…
• New laws:
– Right to Information Act
– National Employment Guarantee Act
– Scheduled Tribes and Other Forest
Dwellers (Recognition of Forest
Rights) Act 2006
• New programmes:
– Organic farming policies /
programmes in 16 states: Sikkim
100% by 2015, Kerala by 2020?

38. Decentralised governance
Nagaland ‘communitisation’: devolution of
govt powers over education, electricity,
health to village councils
Result: sharp increase in quality & quantity of
services

39. Eco-swaraj:
Radical ecological democracy
(Radical = going to the roots, challenging the conventional)
• achieving human well-being, through:
– empowering all citizens & communities to participate in
decision-making
– ensuring socio-economic equity & justice
– respecting the limits of the earth
Community (at various levels) as basic unit of organisation,
not state or private corporation

40. Towards a sustainable and
equitable society … 5 pillars
•Ecological sustainability
–Conservation of nature, sustainable use of resources
•Social well-being & justice
–Equality between men/women, classes, castes, etc
•Direct democracy
–Decision-making by citizens, accountable govt
•Economic democracy
–Means of production in hands of producers, localised self-
sufficiency, economy of caring/sharing
•Cultural and knowledge diversity
–Knowledge as public resource, respecting cultural/ethnic diversity

41. Fundamental values & principles
• Diversity and pluralism (of ideas, knowledge, ecologies,
economies, polities, cultures…)
• Self-reliance for basics (swavalamban)
• Cooperation, collectivity, and ‘commons’
• Rights with responsibilities/duties
• Dignity of labour
• Respect for subsistence
• Qualitative pursuit of happiness
• Equity / equality (gender, caste, class, ethnic)
• Simplicity, enoughness (aparigraha)
• Decision-making access to all
• Respect for all life forms
• Ecological sustainability

42. Pathways to ecological swaraj….
• People’s resistance (Vedanta/POSCO, Orissa; anti-SEZ;
hundreds of others)
• Stretching limits of system (RTI, FRA)
• Citizens’ networking, joint actions, collective
visioning
• Empowering political carriers of new visions ….
movements, students, unions, etc
• Alternatives confluences (vikalp sangam)

43. Mutual learning with other peoples /
cultures ….
• Latin American experiments: direct and delegated
democracy, worker-led production, community health, land re-
appropriation movements
• Europe’s degrowth movement
• Cuba’s urban agriculture, public R&D
• Indigenous peoples’ territorial struggles and notions
of well-being (buen vivir, sumak kawsay, ubuntu …)
• Many others….

44. Vikalp Sangams (Alternatives Confluences):
practical collaborations, bottom-up visioning

45. Vikalp Sangams (regional / thematic)
Timbaktu, Andhra Pradesh, Oct 2014
Madurai, Tamil Nadu, Feb 2015
Ladakh, J&K, July 2015
Wardha, Maharashtra, October 2015
Energy, Bodh Gaya, March 2016

46. www.alternativesindia.org
www.vikalpsangam.org

47. • www.kalpavriksh.org
• www.vikalpsangam.org
• chikikothari@gmail.com
For more information….